


Lonesome Dove

by Laily



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Hurt/Comfort, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Magical Exhaustion, Protective Stephen Strange, Sick Loki (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laily/pseuds/Laily
Summary: Loki recuperates after a battle. Stephen wonders if he cares too much, or not enough.
Relationships: Loki/Stephen Strange
Comments: 10
Kudos: 92





	Lonesome Dove

“Are you comfortable?”

“Comfortable enough.”

“I told you to wait for me.”

“There wasn’t time.”

Stephen slipped a neck pillow around the back of Loki’s shoulders, being careful to avoid the first-degree burn marks marring the canvas of porcelain white skin. The resultant moan of comfort (or discomfort) was soft, restrained and rubbing him all the wrong ways.

“There was plenty of time,” he toned his menacing growl down to a grumble. The Asgardian sorcerer prince was being far too compliant with his ministrations. Loki must not be feeling too good, having gone through the wringer, metaphysically speaking. The scrolls did say the aftereffects of the spell could be brutal.

Stephen wouldn’t know. No one who attempted to cast it had ever lived to tell the story.

Until Loki.

Something vibrated in his back pocket.

Stephen thought of ignoring it, but something told him he needed to see this. He retrieved his mobile phone and instantly wished he hadn’t. He scrolled through his news feed and the further he got, the more alarmed he became. “Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He quickly made to put the phone away, but temporarily indisposed or not, Loki was quicker.

It was a photo of Thor cradling Loki, a lifeless, bedraggled form dripping water all over, only just recently fished out of the Hudson River. There was a blur of red streaking across the badly taken photo: an artifact to the unassuming public, the Cloak of Levitation to the ones in the know.

Stephen had not meant to push the photographer out of the way…but he really was in the way. Loki had been underwater for God knew how long; he was not breathing when they finally got to him, and Stephen was quite keen to commence some semblance of resuscitative effort.

“Oh dear, oh dear...” Loki peered anxiously at the photo. “ _Please_ tell me that this is from your private collection.”

Stephen stared, not knowing quite what to say. “As opposed to?”

Loki scrolled down. “What the – there’s more?”

“...you’ve always said you wanted to trend on Twitter.”

Loki groaned aloud. “Strange!”

“I’m sorry! I was more preoccupied with getting you somewhere safe and making sure you haven’t died on m - us!” Stephen’s face coloured. “Died on us.”

Loki chose to spare Stephen the embarrassment.

“That’s sweet.” He sniffed, tossing the wretched device none too gently onto the coffee table. He really was feeling out of sorts, burning hot one second, shaking to his core with chills the next. “I’m sure the rest of your friends shared your concern, judging by the lack of worried faces around here.”

“I sent them away,” Stephen mumbled.

“I’m sorry?”

“I sent them away,” Stephen repeated, but the confession came out not much louder than it did the first time. “They were getting in the way.”

“Getting in the way of what?”

Stephen said nothing. They were hard images to chase out of his head; Loki, his whole body engulfed in fire, his face contorted in a silent grimace as his mouth worked around the words of the ancient spell. Thor, pulling Stephen back as the forcefield around Loki grew, giving way to the ice within him as it fought its way to the surface, shooting out of his hands and obliterating the fire in its frigid path.

“The spell was volatile. It could have killed you. Should have killed you.”

“I had it under control,” Loki said irritably. “The fire demon would have engulfed the entire city in eternal fire.”

“You didn’t have all the elements, and you winged it anyway.”

“Eternal. As in Fire that burns for all eternity. Fire that cannot be put out.” The tip of Loki’s nose crinkled. “You know I cannot stand the smell of burnt meat.”

The callousness of Loki’s words made Stephen’s blood boil and he finally snapped. “You should have waited for me! You knew I was coming back with the blessed water from Lake Natron, but of course you just had to go off and do your own thing – ”

“All you had was a hunch, Stephen, based on ancient folklore – ”

“And actual _science_. The water is so caustic it could extinguish anything.”

“So could ice. That was the missing element after all.”

“So you decided to sacrifice _yourself_?”

“It seems like the trendy thing to do nowadays.”

“You think this is a joke?” Stephen fumed.

“Well, I was counting on surviving…” Loki made a show of studying a crack in the ceiling. “I’m still here, even if I still can’t feel my legs. The nerves are taking their time regenerating themselves.”

Stephen said nothing. He was simply too furious.

“Why are you so upset, Doctor?”

What was the point? Loki was not going to listen to him anyway. He never did.

This was hardly the first time the God of Mischief’s recklessness almost got himself (and on several occasions, both of them) killed.

“I am not going to apologise for what I did,” Loki said, his voice apathetic. “I was running out of options.”

Stephen’s expression remained solemn, his arms crossed stiffly across his chest.

Loki stared straight ahead and watched their reflection in the black screen of the television, silent and still.

“It was headed for the hospital. You still have mortal friends working there, I had to do something.”

As swiftly as a crudely broken spell, Stephen’s mirror image wobbled, his ghostly features twisting into something resembling horrified understanding. 

A head full of curls landed heavily on Stephen’s shoulder.

“Please don’t be angry with me, Stephen.”

A lock of hair tickled his nose. Like magic, the heaving in his chest eased, the surge of emotions waned.

Stephen turned and buried his face in the crown of Loki’s head, breathing in the lingering scent of smoke.

“I’m not,” he murmured.

It was no longer anger that he was feeling. Only fear.

Fear of letting Loki out of his sight.

“Then why won’t you look at me?” A whisper.

Fear of watching too close.

Both were unacceptable, unforgiveable offences.

Stephen abruptly released Loki and groped blindly down the sides of the couch. He needed to break this spell, he was getting too close, dangerously close,

“Wanna watch something? Let’s watch something.” Stephen fumbled with the remote and clicked on the first TV program on the cable’s recommended list. “ ‘Say Yes to the Nest’? Let’s watch that.”

“A bird show? Oh yes, let’s.” Loki visibly perked up, his eyes wells of devastation only seconds ago, now carrying the ghost of a memory. He liked birds.

Loki was no ornithologist, not like his late Mother was, but as minutes passed with not a single animal to be seen, he began to wonder if the showrunners were simply overclaiming. He had been reliably informed that people would do anything for ratings nowadays.

Loki plucked the remote control out of Stephen’s hand and pressed on a button. The show’s info blurb popped up.

“ ‘This series follows newlyweds on their journey to finding and purchasing their dream home...’ ” Loki read out loud. Then his forehead furrowed. “This isn’t a bird show.”

“No.” Stephen realised in growing horror his mistake; it was yet another one to add onto the list of mistakes he had made that day. Boy, he really was not himself today. There was something about seeing Loki so vulnerable, so _exposed_ , that was throwing him for a loop.

His brain was screaming at him to pull away, but his arm was breaking off from the chain of command and doing its own thing, wrapping itself around Loki’s stiff, unyielding shoulders.

Stephen had been knocked off-kilter, and he knew the reason why. He was holding it.

“No, it isn’t a bird show,” he said serenely, as a strange wave of calmness wash over him. He gazed at the human-shaped bundle of fur in his arms. “Shall we watch it anyway?”

They were the softest, gentlest pair of eyes Loki had ever seen, and they were looking right at him.

That had never happened before…certainly not to him. Now where on earth was Loki supposed to turn his own eyes now?

Gravity pulled his gaze lower and it landed on Stephen’s lips, where it stayed.

“Oh, why not. It’s not like there’s anything else worth watching,” he heard himself say.

The soft, soft smile that broke across Stephen’s handsome face should have looked out of place, for Stephen was a serious, sombre man, who never did have much to smile about, until now.

It was simply begging to be kissed, and Loki was only too happy to oblige. He started out on one corner of Stephen’s lips, the one closest to him, and worked his way deeper until he found Stephen’s tongue.

There it was, the intoxicating tang of maddening anxiety, the frustration, the _lust_ behind the stoic persona Stephen fought so hard to upkeep; spelling it all away with a quick fuck would be the easiest way out, but was also the most insulting. He could not insult Stephen like that.

Loki had tasted too much, seen too much. This one would sell his _soul_ for him.

Loki must, in turn, give him more, if he wished Stephen to stay.

_Stephen Strange, what have you done to me?_

His fingers curled around the hair on the back of his mortal lover’s neck, his breath hot against the underside of Stephen’s jaw. “I wouldn’t mind a casita in our backyard.”

“Yeah?” Stephen said breathlessly, the headiness of the kiss robbing him of his faculty of speech, of thought. _Our?_

“Somewhere we can practice our magic in private.”

There it was again. _Our magic._

The tightness loosened, giving way to a sense of peace. A deep calm.

“Only if we practice it together,” Stephen said coolly. “Can’t have you overexerting yourself like that again, can we.”

Loki opened his mouth to vehemently voice his objection, but Stephen was quick to seal it with his lips and a promise.

“Someplace big enough for our own aviary, what do you say?” Husky. Hopeful. _Happy._

_A place of our own._

By the Norns, Loki wanted to stay, if only to hear the words, even if he had to wait a hundred years.

“I could be persuaded."

**Author's Note:**

> Fluff!!!
> 
> 1\. Lake Natron is an actual lake in Tanzania. It is so salty and so alkaline, its waters have turned animals into stone. 
> 
> 2\. Say Yes to the Nest is an actual show. I may or may not be a fan. 😄


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